The New and Improved Predictable Revenue

This special edition of our usual blog promises to break the monotony and throw in a little curveball for your reading pleasure. Instead of diving deep into the nuances of sales tactics or confabulating with sales stalwarts, we will steer our discourse toward a topic that we seldom explore – our very own Predictable Revenue.

This podcast episode aims to illuminate the exciting transformations we’ve been experiencing, ones you might already have noticed, and others that will manifest in the coming days, weeks, and months.

As we navigate through this transformation journey, the most noticeable change would have been my return to the podcast, an event that transpired last year. We’ve also bolstered our ranks by welcoming new team members, including Greg and Christina, whom you might not have met if you haven’t tuned into all our episodes. This influx of fresh talent marks a significant shift in Predictable Revenue’s dynamics, promising new perspectives and innovative ideas.

In addition to the new personnel, we’ve expanded our range of services – a topic we will discuss in more detail later. However, what’s likely to pique your interest the most is the unveiling of our revamped Predictable Revenue Methodology.

Many argue that Predictable Revenue, being a 12-year-old book based on 20-year-old experiences, has lost relevance. We don’t entirely disagree.

However, the principle of sales role specialization – the notion that salespeople shouldn’t prospect – has proved timeless. That said, we’ve gleaned valuable insights over the years on when to apply and when not to, how to do it effectively, and much more. We’re excited to share these learnings and new methodologies with you.

To wrap up our exciting lineup of changes, we’re also introducing a fresh new brand and visuals. You will find a fresh aesthetic to our podcast, website, and social media – all of which have undergone a face-lift.

Embracing Changes: How Sales Has Evolved Over the Years

Outbound sales used to be relatively simple. High reply rates and phone pick-ups were the norms rather than exceptions, not implying that success came effortlessly, but crafting effective messaging was the winning strategy, and the process was straightforward. This was mainly because there were significantly fewer Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) competing for attention.

However, as sales development has become more accessible, thanks to platforms like SalesLoft and Outreach, this landscape has dramatically changed. It’s now easier to scale up, construct a playbook, implement best practices, and have a team of SDRs sending out a stream of emails. This ease of access means more SDRs are entering the field, resulting in increased competition for the same buyer attention.

Although the buyer pool has remained relatively constant, the number of SDRs vying for their attention has likely multiplied five to tenfold. This sudden explosion in accessibility has led to more competition, putting immense pressure on SDRs.

In the past, good enough was sufficient to be profitable as an SDR team, but that’s no longer the case. With rising competition, merely adhering to the basics will no longer cut it. It is imperative to follow best practices meticulously and have all processes finely tuned. It’s not that the game has necessarily become harder; it has simply become more competitive, which effectively raises the stakes.

In such a scenario, any minor oversights or errors can have significant repercussions, potentially reducing the team’s overall results. This shift underscores the need for sales teams to continually refine their strategies, adopt innovative practices, and strive for excellence in a landscape that is increasingly crowded and competitive. The crux is to stay ahead of the curve by evolving with the changing trends and ensuring that your approach to sales is dynamic and responsive.

Email deliverability has become a crucial factor in setting up successful sales development programs. This has led to businesses focusing more on ensuring their emails reach their intended recipients, bypassing spam filters rather than just sending out a high volume of emails.

Simultaneously, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made headway into sales operations. AI-powered tools are no longer the future; they are here and making waves, increasing the efficiency of sales development teams (SDR). By taking over tasks such as research and email drafting, AI lets SDRs focus on their primary objective – booking meetings.

Perhaps the most significant change has been in the area of communication. The way we sell today has undergone a complete makeover even compared to as recent as five years ago. Our conversations and engagements with potential customers have transformed, making them more customer-centric and focusing on their pain points rather than the product we sell.

This shift from product-centered selling to customer-centered storytelling has revolutionized sales messaging. The emphasis is no longer on the product or solution we offer but on the impact our solution can have on the customer’s business. We’ve realized that the ‘how’ of the solution matters less to customers than the result – the positive impact on their business. This paradigm shift has transformed sales conversations into a deeper dive into customer needs and pains, thus making them the hero of the sales story.

A New Era for Predictable Revenue

Reflecting on the evolution of Predictable Revenue over the past year, internal collaboration has been a real game-changer.

In the past, it seemed that our teams were separate camps stationed on opposite sides of a mountain or valley. Highly skilled and intelligent individuals populated each camp, but the communication and sharing of best practices between these groups were challenging, to say the least. However, over the past six to eight months, we’ve managed to bridge this valley, bringing these two sides closer and closer together. This change has brought forth a significant positive impact on the overall functioning of the business.

We’ve witnessed a remarkable improvement in our coaching practices as we’ve moved away from a stale, by-the-book approach. Today, our coaching techniques are battle-tested and refined by actual experiences and interactions with our outsourcing clients.

On the flip side, the quality of our outsourcing efforts has also significantly improved. Previously, the sole focus was on booking meetings. But now, with the involvement of the consulting side, we’ve seen the bigger picture. We understand that the system involves more than just booking meetings; it’s a more holistic approach, bringing together several elements for a more effective output.

This realization has allowed us to identify and focus on the four core processes of our operations: meet, disco, manage, and nurture.

Meet: starting conversations with prospects out of your network.

Disco: conducting discovery calls and converting these meetings into pipelines.

Manage: involves managing deals in your active and nurture pipeline.

Nurture: staying in touch with accounts that aren’t ready to buy yet.

This shift in approach, this new lens of viewing customer success or failure, has added so much color and context to our understanding of their buyer journeys. It helps us identify where they stumbled, where there might have been a gap, and what we can do to address it and ensure progress.

As a company, we are highly ROI-driven, and it’s clear that if our SDRs are producing meetings that turn into revenue, we’ll have loyal, long-term customers. Conversely, if meetings aren’t turning into pipelines, it clearly indicates a lack of ROI.

This journey of continuous learning and adaptation has provided us with invaluable insights and a more precise direction. As we look forward to the future, we are eager to develop further these practices and methodologies for the success of our customers and Predictable Revenue as a whole.

Closing: It’s a Dance, Not a Sprint

The idea that a great closer can simply waltz in at the 11th hour, make a call, and get the client to sign on the dotted line is a wide misconception. Closing a deal is more of a carefully choreographed dance than a last-minute sprint, requiring a great deal of preparation and intricate steps.

When done correctly, the actual closing becomes almost uneventful – it’s an inevitable outcome of a well-executed process leading up to that point. It’s a culmination of diligent work and strategic maneuvering; by the time you get to the closing stage, you should already be confident about the outcome.

However, this can only be achieved when every step and stage of the process is executed meticulously. No matter how skilled a closer you are, if these preliminary stages are mishandled, the chances of a successful close are severely diminished.

This concept becomes strikingly clear when observing how some clients conduct discovery or demo calls. Too often, key information is missed, and the focus is wrongly placed on pitching without a clear understanding of what’s truly important to the client.

To put it bluntly, you could book countless meetings, but without the correct processes in place, these efforts will be in vain. Every meeting is a potential opportunity and should be treated as such. The initial contact, whether it be a discovery call or a meeting, is arguably the hardest part, particularly in today’s crowded digital landscape. If you’ve managed to cut through the noise and secure that initial conversation, you certainly cannot afford to waste it.

It’s fascinating to observe the contrast in results between clients who understand this and those who don’t. Some of our clients are extremely efficient, turning almost every booked meeting into a viable pipeline, while others, despite having two or three times the volume of meetings, struggle to convert these into successful deals.

The key takeaway is the importance of a holistic approach, encompassing all four stages of the process: starting conversations, running discovery calls, managing the pipeline, and nurturing potential leads. Being great at one aspect will not suffice; a formalized, comprehensive process is necessary for maximizing the potential of every meeting.

Remember, in the sales world; it’s not about that last-minute rush to the finish line. It’s about the dance – the careful, calculated steps leading up to the close. After all, the most effective closers aren’t those who swoop in at the last moment; they are the ones who have been there, meticulously guiding the process every step of the way.

The Evolution of Sales Messaging and the Rise of Targeting

One timeless principle remains unchanged in sales: delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right person will always secure a meeting. However, the way we go about achieving this has rapidly evolved, and the rate of change is only accelerating.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of this evolution is more crucial now than ever. What was cutting-edge just five months ago may now be antiquated as we burn through new ideas at an unprecedented speed. The runway for new methodologies is incredibly short compared to past standards. This constant shift necessitates ongoing research into effective strategies and best practices, requiring significant time investment. As a result, the ability to pivot quickly has become a vital survival skill in the sales world.

This relentless evolution is particularly evident in the shift between the importance of messaging and targeting. In previous years, crafting the perfect message was the primary focus of our work in sales outsourcing. Targeting was of secondary importance as reply and pickup rates were high enough to grant some leniency in this area.

But times have changed. Given the deluge of sales messages that people receive daily, generic messaging no longer cuts it. Instead, precise targeting has taken the reins as the crucial aspect of successful sales strategies. Understanding the client’s needs, interests, and timing has become paramount in standing out among the noise.

Thankfully, the advancement of technology is providing valuable tools for this new sales landscape. Tools such as Clay allow us to enrich our total addressable market and monitor signals, simplifying the complex task of targeting. By pairing this enriched data with AI solutions, we can efficiently process information and build multiple nuanced plays for prospecting.

The days of list-based prospecting – simply downloading a large list from Zoominfo and sending the same message to everyone on that list – are fading. Instead, sales tactics are becoming more intricate, more nuanced, and more targeted.

This shift may be challenging, but it also provides an opportunity to innovate and reach potential customers in more personalized and effective ways than ever before. By embracing these changes and learning to adapt quickly, we can continue to deliver the right message at the right time to the right person, despite the rapidly evolving sales landscape.

Human Talent is More Important Than Ever

The rising wave of artificial intelligence (AI) in business operations, from advanced tech to automated tools, is transforming the sales landscape. But amid all these developments, one truth remains consistent: the paramount importance of your people, your team.

Despite advances in automation, your team are the ones driving meetings, the ones interacting with customers, the ones building relationships. They’re not just churning out volumes of emails or completing tasks; they’re applying expertise, personality, and creativity. In this regard, the best sales representatives are distinguishing themselves now more than ever.

As AI evolves, it infiltrates more and more areas of life, even academic settings. Students are leveraging AI to do their homework, prompting schools to employ AI detectors that can predict how likely it is that AI generated a text. This evolving dynamic could potentially mirror the adjustments seen in email filterings, such as Google’s TensorFlow, SPF records, and DMARC.

The looming question is this: if AI becomes proficient enough to write messaging as well as an SDR, why would we need human involvement? Advanced AI like GPT could potentially write more nuanced, micro-targeted messages. However, should AI detectors become widely effective, we could see them integrated into email platforms like Google and Office 365, filtering out AI-generated messages that are likely impersonal cold emails.

In such a scenario, the importance of personalization and relevance in messaging will only be amplified. Rather than sending automated messages, sales teams will need to invest more time and effort into crafting personal, relevant communications. This is the new frontier of personalization.

Regardless of how email filtering evolves, targeting will remain crucial. The four core processes – meeting, discovery, management, and nurturing (Meet, Disco, Manage, Nurture) – will continue to be the pillars of successful sales strategies. In the age of AI, tightening these processes will be key to ensuring there are no weak links or “leaks in the bucket” in your sales pipeline.

While AI continues to transform the sales landscape, it underscores the enduring value of people in the process. It prompts us to focus more on personalization, relevance, and human touch in our strategies. As technology evolves, so must our tactics – by enhancing the human elements that set us apart.

Ready to unlock your potential and build a predictable sales engine? Our consulting team will walk you through every step – and around the pitfalls – to build and implement a predictable and scalable sales development engine.